Episode 350 – Are the Detroit Red Wings a Wagon?

Episode 350 – Are the Detroit Red Wings a Wagon?

You’re listening to the Grind Line podcast. What’s up and welcome to another episode of the Grind Line podcast. I am your host Greg. I’m here tonight with Ryan. This is episode 350. Ryan, how you doing tonight? Pretty good. Other than the Lions not trying to understand what they want to do this evening against Tampa, even though they’re up 14 and three and a half, but we’ll see. Other than that, I’m good. Wings are on a bender. a bender, a heater, whatever you want to call it. The Detroit Red Wings have won their fifth game in a row. Downing two really good teams in the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Edmonton Oilers since we last spoke or since I last spoke to Jake because you guys had the day off. But we had kind of worried to so tonight we’re going to do a couple game recap and then we’re going to talk about kind of what is powering this team forward, what’s allowing them to do what they have done and go on this fivegame heater. We were initially worried about the gauntlet month of October that we had called it uh before we started the season. We’re like, man, we got to play Toronto back to back. We got to play the Panthers. We got to play the Lightning and the Oilers. And like that’s the defending Stanley Cup champions. That’s people that have made it to the finals. And that’s the guys that make it every year and choke, but they make it every year. And we were kind of like we could see six, seven, eight losses in the first month and really let them pile up. and the Red Wings. Is it safe to say we’re a wagon? Are we a wagon? Let’s calm down a little bit. I mean, for early season early season wagon, right? Early season wagon. I I’ll jump on board that one. I mean, we haven’t seen this type of success out of the team since really Todd took over. We saw two sevengame winning streaks last season after he took over the helm. But they’re playing good hockey. It’s fun hockey and kind of weird, right? Like a little weird. So, the Red Wings won the game against Tampa Bay Lightning 2 to one in overtime. Uh they dominated the Lightning for the first two periods. They let them sneak back in in period three, but in the first two periods, they were kind of goalied. Uh Andre Vaselki had I don’t know if you’d want to call it a bounceback game. He’s been off and on this season. uh he did not have a training camp, so that is part of the reason more than likely that he did not start so hot, but he made uh 29 saves on 31 shots against for a 935 save percentage. Your Red Wings points came two from Dylan Larkin. Axel Sandine Pelico’s first goal as a Red Wing. Assists from JT Con Mason Apple. John Gibson had one goal against 31 saves for a 969. That was his first game since the kind of Montreal debacle in game one. And I mean, you got to give him his flowers. He went out there, he was locked in and looked really solid. That was the goalie you, as a fan, were expecting, right? I mean, that’s the Gibby you traded for. Yeah. And he he earned every bit of it. I I felt bad in that third. the wife and I were at that game along with Tyler and his friends and his dad. And I sitting there, we were just like, man, this is not looking good. And once that the pressure and the onslaught from Tampa, they just picked it up midway through the second and they didn’t look back. I think the third period shots were like 19 to6. But the fact that they only scored one goal throughout that whole thing, props to not only really the team, but to Gibson for standing on his head and really willing them to victory, if you will. Third period shots at 5v5 were 19-5. Kind of the opposite of the first period where shots were 12 to6 in Red Wings favorite 5v5. Corsy4 is kind of tells the whole story of the game. In the first period, it was decently even. 51% for the Red Wings, 48% for the Lightning. Second period though, Red Wings dominated at 5v5, 73% Corsy to 26. And this is basically puck possession, how many how much you’re shooting on net, how much your your team is controlling the puck. But in the third period, the Lightning had an 80% cory to the Red Wings 19%. And that’s what she says like you get towards the end of that third period and you start sweating bullets because you’re like this team the Red Wings should be up four five to to one and you’re like we’re we’re only it’s it’s only one to one and then Dylan Larkin with the overtime heroics just it’s perfect the way he goes in and just locks down and gets pucks on net it gorgeous exactly what you want Larkin to do and he’s been an absolute stud at the beginning of this season. I think what’s crazy too about that overtime goal is that he was out there for how long? Let’s see. I have it pulled up here. He was out there I think for a minute plus because I don’t know if you want to break the unfortunate unknown news at this point but uh he came on the ice immediately after Patrick Kane went down hard into the boards and came off favoring his arm and he got kind of stuck uh out there. Larkin did. But it worked out great because Tampa went for a cross ice or cross crease pass shot type thing that I think it was Headman was in the middle of the ice trying to do the redirect. Completely whiffed, hit the corner just right and it opened Larkin up to a breakaway and the rest is just freaking party. The entire arena erupted and it was a really good start to the weekend and then you move into the game against the Edmonton Oilers. where it was kind of the same story. The Red Wings dominated period 1 with a 73% Corsy, period two with a 60% Corsy. Period three, this time I think they kept their foot on the gas. They were able to just keep applying that pressure, keep shutting down guys like Conor McDavid all night. You just have guys that go up against McDavid. EMTT Finny uh was out there for a long time. Dylan Larkin was out there almost every shift against Conor McDavid and was able to keep pace with him. Larkin had a major four-point night. EMTT Finny had his first two career NHL goals and an assist for a three-point night. Lucas Raymond had two assists. Ben Shrot had an assist. JBD John Gibson had an assist. So, more goalie points. Uh Gibby played decent. He had 16 saves on 18 shots for an 889 save percentage. And the two that he led in, there wasn’t really anything he could do about it. There’s one insane uh kind of redirect that switched directions and was able to go uh just beat him. And the other was Leon Dryidle. And almost no goalie in the league is stopping most shots from Leon Dryidle. So this game I think was better than the Lightning game against like we said the Stanley Cup finalists in the Edmonton Oilers. Yeah, I I I think the matchups have been playing very well at home and obviously they’ve had majority of home games to this point because it’s going to be very interesting as they enter I think the next seven of eight is going to be on the road. Larkin I think if I saw correctly was out there for what 15 17 minutes of time with McDavid. So they literally were writing 17. Yeah. Yeah. writing that matchup throughout the evening and other than kind of an oopsson maybe breakdown of communication for the dry cidle goal they held him in check and they’ve done that before it’s been a while and I think it was actually under Lone you want that type of effort from your top line and top player against another arguably greatest player in the world so we’ve seen that Detroit can match up pretty well and but I think what’s key with this group in particular particular and we’ve kind of hinted at it before but I think it’s even more so now they were able to match the speed and I think that was very important because guys like Finny you mentioned he didn’t look too out of place and while you would think it’d be a normal situation where you’d see a nice big body check he just kind of threw himself in front of these of of Edmonton at times and it forced him off the puck and then that led to a quick breakout going the other way and we saw that though as a team effort and thing for a lack of better words. So the fact that they were able to put the pressure on and keep it going as you stated for all three periods where we were in my mind after Edmonton I think made it was it 3-2. I thought it was going to be oh crap here we go again in the third period and they didn’t they didn’t cave. Yeah. EMTT Finny is like a I I compare him to a Hornet out there. EMTT Finny flies around the ice. is so fast, but he’s also hitting people. He’s poking pucks away. He’s going to do battles on the boards and he just consistently goes after you. Like a hornet will sting you and it can keep doing it cuz it’s not a bee and it doesn’t die after seeing you. EMTT Finny is that kind of player. He just goes in shift after shift and he seems to just have unlimited stamina which is really weird. like it doesn’t look like he gets tired at all and he plays good minutes like firstline minutes out there. So, it’s really good to have and like we said initially, this is a guy that Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond need that can go there, have that energy, make really good defensive moves, get the puck out and get it to them. And it just seems like he’s gaining confidence with each game and learning a lot. Like the IQ is astounding. That I think’s been that point right there. The IQ piece I think has been the most impressive aspect because he is you can tell there’s a solid line chemistry between them. even when Raymond was gone that they just kind of have a good blow to when they’re trying to get the puck up and out of the zone and they’re actually there’s a lot of good overlap in terms of just covering down when someone’s moving in to make a play and it’s allowing for the quick puck pickup and push. I’ve also noticed there’s a lot more coverage for guys. It almost seems like there’s a two stack every time you see a play start to happen where if the first guy misses it, there’s a guy directly behind them to pick that puck up. You’ll see that. I’ve noticed that a lot around the boards where if someone’s it around, there’s always someone stacked behind the player who’s initially supposed to receive it just in case they miss it. It seems like the coverage just in general, especially in the neutral zone, is a lot more effective this season than it has been previously. But to stick on EMTT Finny a little bit before we go uh to a quick break. Chris Draper was on the sick podcast this weekend and they asked him a little bit about EMTT Finny. And I don’t know what’s up with Pierre. It looks like he that’s Pierre, right? It looks like he’d been in the sun for like 3 days. I don’t know what happened to him, but they asked him about EMTT Finny. And Draper said that it’s kind of an interesting story where he got lucky in scouting EMTT Finny. He said that Cam Loops was a wagon that year and that one of their top forwards got hurt, which let EMTT Finny play up and down the lineup. He was able to see just how well he skates against all the competition in the opponent’s lineup. How he closes on guys and forces them to make moves before they want to. Plus, he grew three in postdraft, uh, which gives him size that maybe if he was 3 in taller on draft night, may maybe he’d be drafted a little bit higher. But we see that trans. That’s one thing in Finn’s game that we see translating to the NHL is that ability, like I said, the speed and ability to force himself in on the play and make those guys just p make panic passes that the Red Wings can take advantage of. Yeah, I I think the fact that, you know, they lucked into it is kind of something that we’ve been hoping for for quite a while, right? And that in terms of draft luck and draft hope. So, the way that you kind of heard Drapes describing the way that he is just the motor, he’s going, going, going. You’ve seen that to no end really since being out there with Larkin. It’s been what Larkin even and Todd Mlullen have been praising him and preaching about is that you got to go full gas as Mlullen’s been talking about and he has been crushing it. And that right there shows and props to the Cam Loops coaching staff for the fact that they were not afraid to use him as Draper called it up and down the lineup that night and really as he continued to progress as a player because now that’s allowing that’s what kind of has been his driving force to getting him pushed into the roster and really the driving force is him. But it shows that he’s had that drive now for several years and it continues to get better. Yeah. So, we’re going to take a quick break. On the other side of the break, we are going to talk about kind of what is leading to this team to drive forward. What’s the big difference in their game that we didn’t see last season? Before we do that though, I just want to make everyone aware that memberships are live on our YouTube. If you go to our YouTube channel, there’s a memberships tab. It’s like $3 a month. It helps pay for our subscriptions that we use during the show to provide stats. And you get emotes, you get badges, you get your name on the little marquee bar underneath and shout outs on the episode. Go ahead, you can activate the membership right on our YouTube page. We’ll be right back after a word from our sponsor. Hockey is back and this season, DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting part of the NHL, brings you all the speed, skill, and non-stop action you love. New customers bet just $5 and if your bet wins, you’ll get paid out $300 in bonus bets. And as Red Wings fans, you have three guys you could bet on to win the Calder in ASP, EMTT Finny, and Michael Brans Negard. 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That’s strong coffee company.com promo code grindline at checkout for 20% off. That’s grind line for 20% off your order. Give it a shot. I think you’re going to love it. And we’re back. And I think we’ll just start with this. Dylan Larkin is one of the things that is leading the Red Wings forward. He was named the NHL’s first star of the week. four goals and five assists, nine points in four games played. Dylan Larkin has been a menace. Uh he normally is. He just one of the things I just Is it just the kids? Are the kids giving him the energy? Are they are they pumping some more youthfulness back into Dylan Larkin? Just the excitement around the team, the excitement around the season. We know he’s a really good player. Is this just unlocking another level of Dylan Larkin? Yeah, and it’s it couldn’t have come at a better time, right, with Raymond being out. So, that was an elevation of his game. And I think I texted to Mario earlier, wouldn’t it be great to see this be his true career year to help guide this team to the playoffs? Is that getting ahead of the game a little bit? Absolutely. But you know what? You’re going to need that type of effort from a guy like Larkin, who we have been saying for several years that he can be a point per game plus player in this league. And I think it would help cement himself as one of the top 10 15 centers easily as a top line center on a very good playoff team. And really, if you go back to the World Cup of hockey, it’s it’s been just an unreal time for him. Yes, I get it. The team struggled, but the the buildup and leadup to that was awesome. And now we’re seeing him come out the gate early on. And really, it’s almost like when you hear them talk about him, meaning the media, it’s almost like they’re they’re even willing him or making him a slam dunk pick to make the US Olympic team. And that’s huge. You you you’ve heard that a little bit from Kane with the way that he had started out. And hopefully we hear soon on what’s actually going on with him. And with Larkin, he is putting the team on his back early on. And that is exactly what you need from your captain and it’s what you need for these young guys because they’re seeing what it’s going to take to keep pushing this thing forward over the next what 76 games. I think it goes back to Dylan Lin’s initial comments before the season started when they asked him what is the team identity and the team identity is youth. He pushed for this. The guys in the locker room pushed for this. Todd said before this during preseason, the young guys have come in, they’ve been accepted. It’s excitement around the team for the young guys to come in. They fit right in. And I think that’s part of it is Larkin wanted this. Larkin is going to be trying extra hard. One, to keep these guys in because they’ve got to earn their spot every single night. And two, to just make sure he’s playing at that level to ensure that those guys stay in and to ensure that the team keeps moving forward. And that also goes with the the other half is how the kids are performing. And the kids Emmett Finny and Michael Bransic Negard right now lead the team in hits with 21. If you extrapolate that through the entire season, they’re on pace for 287 hits. That is that’s crazy. Mo Cider led the team last season in hits with 212. Cider has had 200 plus hits each of the last three seasons. I don’t think I think the closest person was Sherat. Marco Casper last season with 156. Sherro was last season 156. No, Marco Casper. Ben Sherro had 127. Uh last season was Cider. Casper than Rasm. And then two years ago, then this is the closest it’s been to Cider, but he had I think 210 plus. Two years ago was 163 was the next closest guy to Cider in terms of hits. So the fact that he is currently sitting third. Yeah, I get it. It’s early, but that’s pretty wild when because that’s it sets the tone, right? It speaks to what this Red Wings team is doing to teams right now in the fact that putting full G. They’re going full gas. They’re going into you hard grazing, but they’re they’re not letting up. And I think that the pressure has led to a lot more opportunity that we’re typically not seeing. Like you saw with Finn’s goal the other night, he drove the net, they drove play hard around the boards. They’re able to get it back up to the point. He drives the net hard right there for a quick rebound and slam dunk goal. Like that what they’re doing and with MBN, the opportunities that he has had because of their forcheing pressure. It’s it’s resonating with Cop and Confer, which is freaking incredible to me. But it’s now giving you’re seeing MBN with high danger scoring chances right in the middle of the slot. It hasn’t gone in yet, but I tell you what, it’s going to be happening really soon if he keeps up this play. And I think that’s what’s most important to the what with what we’re seeing from the rookies. What it’s also doing is just causing a lot of pressure and turnovers in general in the offensive zone. And like you said, scoring chances. the Red Wings against the Oilers. The Red Wings had 28 scoring chances to the Oilers 17. And that pressure, those hits causes turnovers, causes sloppy play, uh gives the Red Wings opportunity to intercept the puck and get more offensive zone time. So, you’ve seen this whole season besides game one and part of uh probably the second Toronto game, there’s a lot more offensive zone time. There’s a lot more scoring chances for you’re getting points for your rookies. Emtt Finny right now leads the league. It’s actually tied a three-way tie for points by rookies in the NHL. It is Emtt Finny, Zeve Buham, and Matthew Schaefer tied with five points each. And you don’t get those opportunities if you play Derrick Lone Red Wings hockey. If you’re chipping the puck in, you play uh chip and chase, you play uh defensive shell, you count on your defense to win you the game instead of your offense. where Todd just opening up and saying, “Play your game. Hit them. Don’t give them room to breathe. Be 100% on the puck.” And when you can do that, we had thought maybe, yeah, maybe you can get away with it against teams like Buffalo and maybe you can get away with it against teams like Chicago, but no, you’re doing this against the Tampa Bay Lightning. You’re doing this against the Edmonton Edmonton Oilers. It’s working and so far teams haven’t been able to respond to it. No. And that’s what’s going to be interesting about this upcoming road trip because to be honest with Raymond being out and then coming back against Edmonton, he still didn’t look right. And I know that Matt was a little slower actually. He he was slower. He wasn’t his same aggressive self, meaning not he wasn’t going into the puck battles like he typically would because usually he’s not afraid to throw his body in there to try to go win that puck away from somebody. And to me, it looked like he was avoiding contact at all costs, which is a bit worrisome in the sense that now that’s taking a taking a body out of it for your forche. But thankfully with the way that Finny and Lin are playing so damn well, you can kind of be a little more flexible with it. But it it’s going to be interesting to see how the matchups take place because I think what Raymond healthy will be obviously a game changer because we didn’t see him at in the second game with Toronto and they really kind of abused it, right? Or I shouldn’t say didn’t see it but he when he left the game it got a lot more difficult for Detroit to really keep that pressure on. Um so it’ll be interesting. Beautiful touchdown. Let’s go. Um, sorry. This is the only downfall of recording while a game is on. Lions just scored a touchdown. Gibbs basically willed them down the field to make it 20 to9 late in the third quarter. But only way you’re going to beat bad passing is with good running. Yeah. No So it I what I am excited for though to kind of go back against my point on the matchups is regardless what happens with Kane, you can tell that they’re still going to be a high tempmpo team and that’s necessary and I didn’t think they really missed a step other than maybe on the power play which is still kind of trying to get its legs under it which is the incredible to me at this point. Um, but yeah. Well, if we not going to talk about power play because I think they were 11th or 12th in power play at like 22%. The Red Wings currently, as of right now that I just pulled at 9:09 p.m. on the 20th, the Detroit Red Wings are fourth in penalty kill at a 92.3%. And Ryan, you had the stats up of where we were last season with penalty kill at the same point. Through six games last season, Detroit was three and three. They had a 15% power play. I’ll start with that. Currently, they’re sitting at 22.2. Whereas on the penalty kill though, last season through six games obviously early on 68.4%. Currently, as you said, 92.3. I think that helps a little bit. That’s a combined 104%. So, there’s that plus 100 where you want to be. Is that sustainable? No. No. Is that a welcomed thing? Yes. Especially because of who they’ve gone against early on in this season. They also haven’t taken a lot of penalties either. There’s they’ve been pretty disciplined so far at the beginning of the season, which is which is really nice to see. But overall, just an awesome weekend for the Wings. An awesome kind of new It’s It’s really cool to see the new systems. It’s really cool to see everything working, the players excited about it, the players working for each other, and just the kids coming in, ASP just being a shot machine causing chaos. Emit Finny being, like I said, being a Hornet and running in there and take poking pucks away and scoring goals and getting points, which is awesome. and Dylan Larkin seemingly just willing his team every night, just being the most consistent uh player on the ice, putting up points, like 11 points in six games, which is pretty crazy. But Ryan, I want to get your final thoughts before we sign off. Yeah, one final thought on the PK piece on the metrics. So, through six games last year, Detroit was sitting at 44 penalty minutes in total. Detroit currently, to your point, is only at 30, which is dead last currently in the league penalty minutes. strong, disciplined hockey. They’re playing better in terms of the penalty kill, playing better defensively as a team. So on that note, I’ll just finish up with that hopefully they can maintain that momentum into this next the next seven of eight on the road because I I think yes, while it does seemingly get a little easier, it’s still worrisome that maybe they get a little bit lax and potentially I mean you got Buffalo, you don’t know what you’re going to get there. Same with the Isisles and the Blues over your next four. So to finish out this month, they can still keep this moment. There’s a lot of opportunity there for more wins. And honestly, the more wins they can bank at this point in the season, the better. So, we’ll see. And also just stay healthy. I hope we have news on Kane. I hope Ry is able to enjoy the day off today. It seems like I don’t think they practiced today and they’ve got something Not. I’m sure they’ll be back. Practice tomorrow. Tomorrow and then travel. So, just get healthy. Stay healthy. You need your top players to make this league and make it make it interesting. Already running 33. Yep. Uh you can follow me online at Bring the Wing. You follow the Grind Line podcast online at Grindland Pod. To that point though, Ryan Todd did also make that same statement. You can start winning. You can get a little lax. It’s their job to keep doing exactly what they’re doing. So, he’s reminding the team of that, which is good. We like to thank the Hockey Podcast Network for hosting us and spreading us around. Vintage Detroit collection, which is the only place you get your Detroit jerseys from and worked on, where we have an exclusive t-shirt collection. If you go to their website, click the Keep It Local tab, click the Grind Line podcast, you will find all our designs on there. We would also love for you to sub to us on YouTube and turn on those notifications. You will be notified every time an episode goes live, which is now twice a week, and we’re sticking to it and we’ve been really good at it so far. That is going to do it for us tonight. So for Ryan, I am Greg. You stay glassy town.

Big wins against the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Edmonton Oilers on the backs of Dylan Larkin and John Gibson push the Wings to the top of the Eastern Conference. We also get some rookie first goals for Emmitt Finnie and Axel Sandin-Pellikka, but is the team’s performance sustainable?

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